MICHAEL Branch and Ryan Lowe were frozen out of Wednesday's morale-boosting 3-1 victory at Boston United following a furious bust-up with the club's management.

The Chronicle understands the disagreement - believed to be over tactics - stemmed from Sunday's derby defeat at Wrexham and came to a head when the team returned for training on Tuesday.

As a result of the row, ex-Everton star Branch and leading scorer Lowe played no part in the Blues' impressive win at York Street and are unlikely to feature in tomorrow's home clash with Macclesfield Town.

In his post-match interview at Boston, manager Mark Wright revealed there had been a problem but refused to go into detail.

He said: 'Obviously there were one or two things going on behind the scenes which I'm not prepared to talk about at this moment but in time they will come to light.'

Wright later added: 'We're not prepared to have any player bigger than the football club or bigger than the team.

'We want everyone to be together and everyone to pull together.'

When quizzed on the matter yesterday, Blues chairman Stephen Vaughan said: 'I leave all football matters to Mark Wright and am not prepared to get involved.'

Striker Branch, 27, and fellow forward Lowe, also 27, are both under contract until the end of next season but their future at the club now seems to hinge on whether they can resolve their differences with Wright, who took over from the sacked Keith Curle in February.

It is not the first time Branch has crossed swords with the new Blues boss.

Earlier this month, he was stripped of the captain's armband and left out of the squad for a match at Darlington following a disagreement with Wright.

However, the pair later patched up their differences and Branch was welcomed back into the fold.

In an exclusive interview with The Chronicle only a fortnight ago, the striker said: 'I'm committed to Chester City and to keeping us up.'